got shoved around all year. DL just gets blocked and taken out of plays. Worst I recall in a long time
There were so many detail items this team sucked at doing. Dumb penalties. poor tackling, missed assignments, horrific up the middle, untimely turnovers, and so on. The hallmarks of a poorly coached team. Aguilar regressed. The strength and explosiveness of the team was poor. This may be my least favorite season since '86.
It’s been clear all season that Banks was only part of the problem. At this point, it just feels like a matter of time before we are searching for a new HC again. One thing’s for sure - there is ZERO excuse not to have a solid QB going into next season. It’s Year 6. Go get your [uck fay]ing guy in the portal, and he had better outplay Joey this year.
Their ability to run as fast as they can into a the back of scrum at the line in unmatched. Illinois probably had 100 yards rushing just on running right and bouncing left when the whole defense crashed with no one keeping contain.
Yeah those extra bowl practices clearly accomplished nothing. We got worse every week this season. May as well have just opted out of the postseason.
QB critical TO leading to points...check Missed makeable FG...check No gap discipline...check No edge discipline...check Missed tackles...check Massive cushions in coverage...check No consistent pressure on QB...check No respect from refs...check
Also, do you guys realize how bad the call had to be in the 2021 MCB for Jordan Rodgers to defend UT?
IMO Knowles needs to come in and clean house on the defensive side. I'm normally a big fan of Gardner but this DL performance was atrocious. They're talent-laden and have depth enough to not get pushed around at least by marginally talented OL. DL has had no real push all year, the ends can't set the edge and they are atrocious at over-pursuing - leading to massive gaps in the middle of the field that both Vandy and Illinois exploited for QB scrambles. This isn't even going into the run D aspects. Garner is a good recruiter but has lost it as a developer/coach. Every other D position coach isn't a good enough recruiter to offset their coaching - especially Martinez. S&C needs to go. I am not defending the OL but I think most of those sacks are on Aguilar. I think he stayed in the pocket to play hero ball and tried to make big plays that weren't there - he's accustomed to Brazell as a bail out and that wasn't there. This really showed how -- painfully average at best Aguilar is. Illinois legitimately has a horrible defense - Aguilar really struggled even with checkdowns. While some of that is on the OL I don't think it all is. I still adamantly state that if Pittman is available - Heupel needs to make a hard choice with his longtime friend and show him the door.
I’m not sure Garners recruiting has even been good. We didn't have have an nfl DT on the field last night as far as I could tell
That'd be coaching. Garner doesn't actually have that good of a track record in putting guys into the NFL - it's especially when compared to his recruiting. He's pulled in 11 5* guys according to 247 and has only put 3 guys into the 1st and another 2 in the 2nd in the last 20 years. He's living on a great reputation that he built pre-2005 where he put 5 guys into the 1st.
I didn’t pull the data but Grok and ChatGPT say about 20% of 5* recruits end up going in the first round and about 13% in the second. Garner has produced better than that it looks like. The AI guys do acknowledge DL players have a higher draft rate than the average though. So that suggests he might be putting up average development numbers.
Well, TBF, I'm crediting him with James Pearce who is one of his 3 1st Rounders but JPJr wasn't a Garner recruit. I pulled his 247 5* DL (7 on record) recruits and: * 2 1st Rounders (Derrick Brown in 2020 and Alec Ogletree in 2013) * 2 more drafted (3rd and 5th Rounds) * 1 is still in college (Jordan Ross) So... not bad, actually.
